Southern Tier Soldier Saved by Bible PFC Brendan Schweigart, 22, of Andover told his mother he always carried a Bible into battle. Little did he know, it would save his life. "He believes in God. And you know he went to church," said Schweigart's mother Kim Scott by phone Tuesday. Schweigart grew up going to church and Bible Camp, she said. In 2006, at the age of 22, he left his three siblings to join the army. He went to work on trucks in Iraq. Last week, he was two miles from his base in Rustamiyah, Baghdad when his unit came under attack. "He was out retrieving a tank that had been hit, and he said at first it felt like a sledgehammer hitting him, and then they said he'd been shot," recounted Scott, "It was a sniper that shot him, he said, some kind of Russian gun." Schweigart was the only hit, says his mother, and only when doctors cut away his clothes, did they see his wounds. "Through the back of the arm, his left arm, there's a hole going in, a hole coming out, and then one coming into the side of his chest and one coming out," she said. But the bullet missed Schweigart's vital organs because over his heart, that day, was a Bible. Scott says it's the one he got at boot camp. The Bible acted as a shield, that trapped the bullet. Jessica Weinstein: "Is the bullet actually in the Bible?" Kim Scott: It's in the pages. It went through the pages of the Bible." "The doctors told him he was one lucky kid...boy," she added. Lucky, yes, says Kim Scott, but blessed as well, not just by the contents of the book he carried, but by its very presence. Scott says PFC Brendan Schweigart received the purple heart last Sunday. He's already out of the hospital and on light duty. Scott says becasue his injuries are not considered life threatening, he'll return to duty after a few weeks.
